Promise
by Zaney HacknSlash
Summary: In the silence after the storm, comfort comes in different forms, and companionship is the remedy for failure. Short one-shot that takes place in the Kami-Sama arc, after Gojyo is reunited with the others.


I listened to him flipping his lighter open and shut, then open again, then shut, in a slow methodical sort of rhythm, somewhere in the dark, near the end of my bed, and I could make out the hovering, wavering orange light of his cigarette if I sat up a little, although I couldn't stand to do it often, seeing how it caused me inordinate amounts of pain. But, I could see smoke drifting through the open window, filtering out against the moonlight, so I knew he was there. I'd been drifting in and out of consciousness for hours, passing into fitful, dark and frightening dreams and then back into the hazy reality of the dark, scanty, little inn room I was lying in. In many ways, neither was better than the other—in my dreams, I was full of fear and anger, body wracked with pain, mind beset by bewilderment and a total loss of confidence, and in reality, I didn't feel any better. It was such a thin line between consciousness and unconsciousness, I could scarcely discern the two, and in fact, the only difference seemed to be that, in reality, there was that consistent, rhythmic flip of the lighter, and that wavering orange light, should I strain to see it, and that familiar scent of tobacco that had to come to be such a comfort in the last three and a half years. Perhaps all of that was the only thing making reality better than sleep just now.

Because we had truly been beaten by Kami-sama. We had truly and completely lost. We had barely escaped with our lives, and we had all been humiliated and knocked down and sneered at in a way that we'd never been forced to endure before, and it was something I hated to have to live with. Those terrible memories of pain and fear, of knowing my life was over, of realizing, quite suddenly, that I wasn't as strong as I had thought I was, and neither were the others—the others I'd relied on in so many difficult situations.

Even Goku had fallen, and that wasn't something I'd ordinarily expect. If nothing else, Goku should have been able to hold his own, and yet he'd been overcome just as easily as the rest of us, and there was nothing we could blame aside from our own weakness.

Weakness was intolerable, an imperfection and a hindrance I had never allowed myself before, and I had always assumed that I was strong. Kami-sama was right in that. I hadn't been expecting to learn that I was weak. I hadn't been expecting some effeminate, underweight, deranged priest wearing what might as well have been a dress to laugh at me and knock me on my face.

The anger and the regret that all caused me was unbearable, and in a way, I wanted to close my eyes and pass out again, in hopes that this time I would sleep without dreaming, and perhaps when I awoke there'd be some answer, or I'd suddenly be enlightened as to how I could regain my decimated pride.

However, at the same time, I'd been straining to stay awake for probably half an hour now, because I wanted to listen to him play with his lighter and watch the smoke of his cigarette drift through the window. We'd been separated for days and days, and as much as I'd tried not to show it to Sanzo and Goku, that separation had put me quite off-balance, stumbling through life, not sure what I should do or where I should go, not even exactly sure of who I was to begin with. Should I leave Sanzo and go after him? Heaven knows I would have much rather been by Gojyo's side than continue into India with Sanzo. And yet there was a loyalty and a debt to Sanzo that I couldn't simply betray. But didn't I owe loyalty and life to Gojyo just as much as I owed it to Sanzo? I'd told myself that I'd never be able to find him anyway, even knowing that it was a lie, and I'd forced myself to keep moving with the others, telling myself that there was nothing I could do, so no matter how much I wanted to go back, I had to forget him.

Forget him because, chances were, I was never going to see him again. Chances were, he was going to die. And if he didn't, he was never going to catch up to us, so he'd likely just wander away and go back to living life the way he always had before, and as terrible and unacceptable as that was, there was no help for it, because he'd gone, and he hadn't asked me to accompany, and I had a duty to fulfill in any case, and there was no real choice aside from continuing forward and hoping him the best.

And hating him for being so selfish and impulsive to begin with.

How wrong those few days had been; always indecisive, always feeling alone, feeling incomplete, looking up to speak to him and finding he wasn't there, remembering, with such despair and frustration that he had just walked away from me without a word.

Not really without a word. He'd apologized, in advance, for what he intended to do. I had known he meant to leave, and I hadn't stopped him. I had known that there was no way I could.

What was I supposed to do? Bow down and beg? There are some things in life that I know full well he cannot possibly ever over-look or let go of, things that will haunt him if he doesn't confront them, things that will, without question, tear him away from me, no matter what I say or do, and fortunately, we haven't encountered a lot of that in the past. Not even as room mates. But even if we did, there had always been the option back then, to go with him, and the comfort of knowing that, even if I didn't go with him, he'd just come home, eventually, when he'd settled matters and felt satisfied with the outcome.

Long ago though, I learned that there are some things even I could never talk him out of. So Sanzo sneered at me for letting him go, but Sanzo had no idea that trying to convince him to stay would have been futile. Sanzo had no idea that it would have been much more likely that he would have somehow managed to talk _me_ into going with _him,_ rather than the other way around, and the fact that he hadn't told me he was going, and the fact that I'd pretended not to know that he meant to go away, had been our way of ensuring that I didn't somehow get persuaded into abandoning Sanzo as well. Gojyo must have thought it would be better that way—he must have assumed Sanzo would need me more than he would.

Maybe he didn't think about what I needed, and it was hard not to be angry with him for that. It was hard not to resent the fact that he'd acted selfishly, either ignoring or disregarding what I would have wanted.

I'd seen it in his face when we'd interrupted his fight with Kami-sama: he had never expected to see any of us again. He hadn't thought, even for a second, that we'd come back to find him, so he must have known that, even if he won that fight, the two of us would likely be separated for a very, very long time, if not forever. Apparently he'd decided that was acceptable, as long as he got to avenge the child Kami-sama killed, but he'd also, apparently, neglected to consider whether or not that was all right with _me_.

And it wasn't. Even now, relieved as I was, part of me still really wanted to beat the living hell out of him.

I listened as he continued to play with his lighter. He hadn't slept at all, as far as I knew, and I didn't know why that was, but I did understand that his restless fidgeting indicated rare but deep reflection. I could only guess what he was thinking of.

Beside me, Jeep nuzzled my shoulder. He'd been restless too, lingering with me in a very concerned manner.

At last, I sighed, "Will you tell me what's on your mind?"

The noise stopped, abruptly. I heard him shift around, probably to look at me, "You awake?"

"At the moment. Why are you?"

"Just not tired."

"You are injured though, just like everyone else."

"Yeah. But I'm not tired."

I smiled a little to myself. "Are you under some deluded impression that your sitting up while the rest of us sleep will somehow improve this situation we find ourselves in?"

"Hakkai." He chuffed. "You think too much."

"And you rarely think at all, which is what has me so curious to know what it is you're contemplating tonight."

"Guess."

I closed my eyes and thought back on the fight again. The fight that we'd lost. All four of us, so easily, losing, just like that. Like we were nothing.

"Refusing to sleep won't change what happened, Gojyo."

"You know me. I don't try to change shit."

"That's a lie." I answered quietly. "If anything, you try too hard to change things that can't possibly _be_ changed."

Suddenly, he stood up and went to the window to stare out, and I knew I'd touched on something important. His childhood, perhaps.

"Whatever." He grumbled. "The hell do you know?"

"Nothing, I suppose."

"So shut up and go back to sleep."

After a moment passed, I strained to sit up on my elbows, wincing through the pain in my wounded abdomen, so that I could watch his silhouette against the moonlight, and remember, vividly, that we had come disturbingly close to walking out of one another's lives.

_The blame does not lie solely on him._ I told myself. _I chose to move on with Sanzo and Goku. I chose not to confront him before he left._

When I'd studied him a while, I finally said, as firmly as I could, even though it felt more like begging than ordering, to me, "Don't ever do that again."

Gojyo didn't answer, and he didn't move. He wasn't even fidgeting with his lighter now, just smoking in absolute silence.

"Did you hear me?"

"Don't get all bent outta' shape, Hakkai. I knew it would work out, somehow."

"You had no idea if it would work out or not. I'm not even sure how you could have possibly seen your way clear to finding your way back to us."

He sighed, "I had to do it, okay? It didn't matter what happened later…"

"I know that. And I even understand _why_."

"No, I doubt that."

"I do." I insisted. "Because of what you saw in Ginkaku and Kinkaku. Because of the things that you see when you look over your shoulder."

"God, your so damn smart. You're really underappreciated huh? Traveling around with this shitty band of misfit idiots."

"Well." I sat up, ignoring the sweltering pain it caused me. "If that wasn't the reason then, by all means, explain to me what it really was, because as far as I can tell, you just walked out on us because you encountered something that you didn't like—something that brought your past to the surface."

He sighed and swung around suddenly, scraping hair out of his face and leaning back against the window sill, "I never shoulda' told you that story."

"What good would that do either of us? If you hadn't, I would absolutely never understand the way you behave—I can hardly make sense of it now, even knowing what I know."

"I didn't ask for you to make sense of it."

This was getting a bit frustrating now. "But I try to, you know. Because I want to understand, because I want to be able to assist you, when you need me to. What's so wrong with that?"

"Hakkai… I know that not everything that's important to me is important to you, okay? That's all right."

"But you're wrong. In fact, everything that's important to you _is_ important to me, even if it's in a different sort of way. Even if it's not as personal. It's still important to me, because _you're_ important to me, and I can't deny that having you walk away without so much as an explanation was very disheartening."

"I didn't think I needed to explain it—you _are_ so damn smart, after all. I figured you'd know why."

"Yes, well, you were right."

He shook his head, slightly, tossed his cigarette out the window, "What do you want me to say? I can't exactly apologize."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm just asking that you don't ever do it again."

Gojyo didn't answer. I assumed that was because he didn't think he could promise me that he wouldn't.

So I said, heavily, "Listen. I'm not naïve enough to believe you will never again encounter something that forces you to choose between your personal demons and your team mates. You hide it well, but…I know that there is still a lot of heaviness inside you, and I know that, in the future, there will be plenty of repercussions for you to face. One doesn't simply walk out of a situation like yours and expect to never be confronted by things that will affect them very, very deeply. Still, I think it's important for you to know that I understand that, and what's more, I can certainly empathize. As can the others."

"I know that." For once, he didn't scoff at me or try to trivialize what I was telling him, and that was encouraging.

"I would never presume to attempt to fight your battles for you, just like I would never presume to think you need me to protect you, but you must know that I still feel inclined to fight beside you."

He just nodded.

"You've stood by me while I faced plenty of repercussions of my past, Chin Yisou not being the least of such repercussions, so I hate to think that you may have gotten it stuck in your head that everything you deal with is your own battle to face, and that my willingness to help doesn't matter. Sometimes I feel like you act that way to punish yourself."

He shook his head. "No, dude." His voice was uncommonly quiet. "I know all that. I knew if I asked you to go with me, you would. I know whose side your on—I'm not that dumb—but I didn't wanna' drag you into some mess with me, if I didn't have to, and I didn't wanna' completely destroy the team. In the end, stopping the revival is probably about two million times more important than my fucking childhood trauma issues. That's why."

I considered him, a little sadly, but I wasn't sure what to tell him, because I suppose most of that was true. If he'd asked me to go with him to fight Kami-sama, I certainly would have, but that would have destroyed the ikkou—Sanzo never would have stopped just because he was left alone with Goku—it wasn't impossible for the three of us to succeed without Gojyo, even if it certainly would have been more difficult. But if Sanzo and Goku went to Houtou Castle alone, they both would have died.

Suddenly, it occurred to me what a difficult decision it might have been for him, choosing to go after Kami-sama alone, facing something that bothered him so much without anyone. Specifically, without me. But he'd known better than to divide the team completely.

He cracked a grin, suddenly, and I could barely make out the flash of his teeth in the moonlight, "So how about we just cut to the chase, and you tell me you missed me."

I rolled my eyes at him, but in truth, it felt good to be real with him, for a moment. In a way, traveling with the others had robbed us of our intimacy and had changed the nature of our partnership, seeing how there were always others to concern ourselves with, and appearances to keep up that we never would have trifled with in the solitude of our own home, but none of that had changed the way things were, at the heart of our friendship. It was good, for a moment, to be able to speak to one another the way we always had before, without fear of being judged or belittled, so it was best, in this moment, to take advantage of the opportunity to be completely honest and unashamed.

"Yes." I murmured. "I missed you very much, stupid. And I thought I'd never see you again. And I'm happy I was wrong."

"Aw, 'Kai, you're such a pessimist."

"You think we would have reconnected, eventually?"

"Sure." He lit a cigarette, casually. "You woulda' come looking for me, at some point. There's no way you could live without me."

"That is extremely pretentious of you."

Gojyo shrugged. "Naw. I mean, you _did_ come back—way quicker than I thought you would too—somebody had to convince Sanzo it was for the best, and I seriously doubt it was Goku."

"Actually." I laughed. "Coming back for you was a mutual, begrudging decision, made more or less simultaneously by the team as a whole."

He was silent a moment, cocked his head at me the way he did when he wasn't sure I was kidding. "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. It seems that Goku and Sanzo couldn't live without you much better than I could."

"Hunh."

"To be fair, we all wanted to kill you, but still. It was a mutual agreement."

We were both silent a while before I pressed, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to admit to having missed _me_?"

"Oh." Gojyo laughed a little, rubbed the back of his neck. "Sure yeah. I did. Still, I knew you'd show up in a couple days, or whatever."

I allowed him to act like that's what he'd thought, even though I'd seen it plainly that he hadn't been expecting to see any of us ever again.

Finally, I laid back down—the pain in my abdomen was worse than ever—staring up at the darkness of the ceiling. "As I said, don't ever do that again. I'm not sure I'll always have the option of going back to get you."

"Right. I won't." He sank down again on the floor beside my bed.

"Promise me." I prompted, beginning to feel drowsy once more.

"Alright, alright, you girl. It was a one time thing."

"That's not much of a promise, Gojyo."

I felt him reach up and ruffle my hair, "I promise I'm not walking out on you again, Sunshine. I mean it. I'd probably just fall apart without you anyway."

For a short moment, I clenched his wrist, felt the warmth of his blood pulsing beneath my fingers, and let him go again. Then I shut my eyes and drifted away, comforted in the knowledge that he'd be there when I drifted back to reality.


End file.
